The Late Child

by Larry McMurtry

  “We were just extras,” Laurie said. “Just in one scene. We visited the set, and we were dressed sort of funky and the director just decided to stick us in. I have a tape of the skit. I could give it to you.”

  “I’d like to watch it, I think,” Neddie said.

  “Want to go to Laurie’s and watch it, Mom?” Eddie asked.

  Harmony didn’t answer, for a bit.

  “Eddie, I think we better just go to the Statue of Liberty,” Harmony said.

  16.

  “Is this Otis a big bruiser?” Neddie asked Sheba, a little apprehensively. They had decided to go as a group and confront Otis, in the Dumpster behind the Shop and Sack, where he was staying. For Pat, Neddie, and Harmony, it was their first walk on the streets of New Jersey. Eddie walked between Laurie and Sheba, holding hands with each of them.

  “No, he ain’t big, he just has fits,” Sheba said. “If he can find some glue to sniff he’s apt to have a fit anytime. People need to stop throwing away glue. It gets in Dumpsters and Otis finds it and pretty soon he’s having a fit. I get scared he’ll bite me with them bat teeth of his.”

  “Oh,” Neddie said. She and Pat were both walking carefully, cheerfully, taking tiny, cautious steps. Both of them seemed to feel that the streets of New Jersey might swallow them up, if they didn’t exercise caution. Eddie kept looking back at his aunts, puzzled by their inhibited way of walking.

  “Maybe they think this is an Indiana Jones movie,” he suggested. “Maybe they think a trapdoor is going to open and let them fall into a pit of boiling oil.”

  “It could happen, Eddie,” Pat said. “Trapdoors can be anywhere.”

  “If the streets of Las Vegas were this dirty no one would ever come there and the casinos would all close,” Harmony said. She was rather enjoying the walk—she liked seeing her little boy walk along with Laurie and Sheba; she liked it that Eddie was so welcoming—it was a good trait for a little boy to have, Harmony thought.

  It had to be admitted, though, that the streets of New Jersey were filthy streets, at least in the part of town where the No-Tel Motel was. Most of the garbage cans had been knocked over and their contents raked onto the sidewalks or into the streets. A small gray Yugo with its doors open and its windshields smashed out, its hood up, and three of its four tires missing, was parked right on the sidewalk. The fourth tire was flat. Around it on the sidewalk were empty wine bottles, empty whiskey bottles, syringes, cotton swabs, condoms, pools of vomit, and several squashed tomatoes. The sky was the same color as the Yugo, gray. It was the opposite of all Harmony had been used to; in Las Vegas they made a point of keeping the streets real clean—they didn’t want some tourist or junketeer to step out of the casino and be revolted by condoms or squashed tomatoes or little torn-up cars.

  Still, Harmony didn’t feel too bad. Having Laurie and Sheba and Omar and Abdul and Salah sort of made things less lonely.

  “Yuk, you can get AIDS just from walking down this sidewalk,” Pat said.

  “You cannot, it’s just a few syringes, just watch where you step,” Harmony said.

  “Otis ain’t been himself lately—he might have another woman,” Sheba said. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “What does it mean that he has bat teeth?” Eddie asked. “Does he suck people’s blood like a vampire?”

  “You’ll see when you see him, Bright,” Sheba said. “I’m glad there’s a bunch of us coming. I ain’t up to having Otis throw no fits this morning.”

  “Mom, we have to remember to recycle glue,” Eddie said. “It will help Sheba if we do.”

  “Help Otis too,” Sheba said. “He’s the one sniffing up his brain. Otis got a good brain when it ain’t filled up with them glue fumes.”

  “Would be more pleasant to be going to Statue of Liberty,” Omar reminded them. “Is not pleasant to see brokenhearted man.”

  “Too much weeping,” Abdul said.

  “I am homesick, I don’t like New Jersey,” Salah said.

  “What about us?” Pat said. “You think we don’t miss Oklahoma?”

  “There’s my Dumpster,” Sheba said. “That’s Otis’s motor scooter. I guess the man at home.”

  A small yellow motor scooter was chained by the Dumpster. The Dumpster itself was green.

  “He might have his new woman in there, if he’s got one,” Sheba said.

  “What kind of woman would want to live in a Dumpster?” Pat asked without thinking.

  “The kind that ain’t got nowhere else to live, like me,” Sheba said.

  Sheba stopped, suddenly. They were in the parking lot of the Shop and Sack, only about twenty yards from the Dumpster Sheba claimed as her own.

  “He’s doin’ it!” Sheba said. “I can tell.”

  “Doing what?” Neddie asked.

  “Doin’ it!” Sheba said.

  “I think she means making love,” Eddie said, in his clear, cheerful voice.

  “Oh, Eddie, you’re just five, you don’t know what making love means,” Harmony said, hoping she was right. She was embarrassed by the turn the conversation had taken.

  “Isn’t it when the daddy puts his penis in the momma’s vagina?” Eddie asked.

  “Well, that’s close,” Pat said.

  “At Eli’s house they call it sexual intercourse but at Maggie’s house they just call it ‘it,’” Eddie said.

  “He’s a bright little boy, active soon,” Omar said.

  “Don’t rush him,” Laurie said.

  “Yeah, who asked you?” Neddie asked.

  “Omar only talks about sex—he is too old to perform,” Salah volunteered.

  “Can we go to the Statue of Liberty now?” Harmony asked. “Sheba can visit Otis when we get back.”

  “No, I ain’t going till I see my man,” Sheba said.

  “Then go see him,” Laurie said. “The Dumpster’s right there.”

  “I see the Dumpster, it’s what’s going on in the Dumpster that’s got me worried,” Sheba said.

  “Maybe he’s just taking a nap,” Laurie said. “I have a friend who naps in Dumpsters. It’s not that unusual.”

  “Go look, Harmony,” Pat said. “If the man’s busy we can come back some other time.”

  “Why me? I don’t even know Otis,” Harmony said.

  “Yeah, but you live in Las Vegas,” Pat said, as if that were reason enough as to why Harmony should be the one to find out if Sheba’s husband was committing adultery in a Dumpster behind the Shop and Sack.

  “Pat, I don’t live anywhere,” Harmony reminded her.

  “That’s okay, Mom, I’ll go see if he’s doing sexual intercourse,” Eddie said. Before anyone could stop him he raced toward the Dumpster. The minute he got there he climbed up on the motor scooter in order to be able to peek in.

  “Oh no,” Harmony said. “Why is this happening?”

  “Well, when he gets to the farm he’s apt to see the bull doing it with the cow, anyway,” Neddie said. “Or the boar doing it with the sow. Or the rooster doing it with the hen.”

  “Neddie, shut up,” Harmony said.

  “Yeah, we’re not talking about Noah’s ark here,” Pat said.

  “Hey, look at that,” Sheba said. “Look at him climb. If they’re doin’ it, Bright’s seeing it.”

  Eddie stood on tiptoe on the motor scooter and peeked into the Dumpster.

  “Oh my God,” Harmony said. “I just hope nobody’s completely naked.”

  “They could cover up with sacks, if they’re naked,” Laurie said. “Usually there’s lots of sacks in a Dumpster that size.”

  Eddie, unconcerned, seemed to be holding a pleasant conversation with the people in the Dumpster.

  “That kid will talk to anybody,” Neddie observed. “I’ve never seen it fail.”

  “No, but male organ can fail,” Salah said, looking at Omar.

  “Shut up about the male organ, it’s all you talk about, Salah,” Pat said.

  After a moment more on the motor scooter, Eddie jumped down and
came racing back across the parking lot. Several black men standing around the pay phones looked at him with amazement, and then amusement—a small white boy with golden curls racing across their parking lot was a sight that seemed to amuse them. There was a flash of white teeth.

  “Eddie takes the world with him, doesn’t he?” Laurie said. “He just sort of makes things his own.”

  “He’s just a little boy,” Harmony said. “He shouldn’t have to worry about things that older people worry about.” The thought of Eddie having to concern himself with the uncertainties and turmoil of the sexual life made her heart ache.

  Eddie himself was untroubled by whatever he had seen. He raced up to Sheba and leapt into her arms.

  “They’re not doing it,” he announced.

  “Who they?” Sheba inquired.

  “Rosie and Otis,” Eddie said. “Rosie’s just changing her clothes.”

  “Otis is a small,” he added. “He’s not very big at all, but he does have bat teeth.”

  “You think he’s small now, wait till you see how small he is when I rip his little squirrelly head off,” Sheba said.

  She handed Eddie to Laurie, who gave him a kiss. Sheba started off across the parking lot. When she was nearly to the Dumpster a large black girl in a blond wig climbed out and ran off behind the Shop and Sack at the fastest clip she could manage. Sheba yelled something at her but the black girl kept running.

  “I think they may have been doing it just before Eddie arrived,” Pat said.

  “No they weren’t doing it!” Eddie said, with emphasis. “Rosie was just changing her clothes. Don’t say stupid words to me!”

  “He gets mad if people contradict him,” Harmony said, to Laurie.

  “I can tell he has firm opinions,” Laurie said. “That’s good, though. People who have firm opinions don’t get pushed around as much as people who don’t.

  “I don’t have firm opinions, I’m a jellyfish,” she added.

  “I’m a sponge, myself,” Neddie said. “Everybody I know pushes me around.”

  “Neddie, it’s not attractive to feel sorry for yourself,” Harmony told her sister. “It makes people feel guilty.”

  “People are guilty, Harmony,” Neddie said. “Looks like you’d have figured that out by this point in life.”

  “If people aren’t guilty, who is?” Pat asked.

  “Mom, I don’t want Sheba to tear Otis’s head off,” Eddie said. “She shouldn’t tear his head off just because he has bat teeth. He could go to the dentist and get his bat teeth fixed.”

  “I think there were other problems, Eddie,” Harmony said.

  Just as Sheba reached the Dumpster, Otis started to crawl out. When he saw how close Sheba was he decided he had no chance for a getaway and dropped back into the Dumpster, out of sight.

  “It’s true he’s not very big,” Harmony said. “I hope she doesn’t hurt him.”

  “Why are you always on the man’s side?” Neddie asked. “He was doing it in a Dumpster with a fat girl in a blond wig—why wouldn’t she rip his head off?”

  “You are wrong!” Eddie said, indignantly. “You are saying stupid words! I don’t want to hear those words! Otis is nice.”

  “The war of the sexes,” Laurie said, smiling. “I guess it starts at birth.”

  “Otis is my new friend,” Eddie said. “I now have Laurie and Sheba and Otis, and Rosie and Omar and Salah and Abdul. That’s almost as many friends as I had in Las Vegas. Now I won’t be lonely.”

  Everyone was silenced by this passionate outburst, except Sheba, who was screaming into the Dumpster. When she got through screaming she went to the back of the Dumpster and managed to push the heavy lid closed. It closed with a loud clang. Several of the black men at the pay phones jumped when the lid clanged.

  “It’s a good thing Otis didn’t have his head sticking over the edge when that lid dropped,” Pat said. “Sheba wouldn’t have had to rip it off. She could have Dumpstered it off.”

  “Why doesn’t anybody like Otis?” Eddie asked. “You haven’t even met him. It’s prejudiced to not like people you don’t even know.”

  “Well, he’s certainly got a point there,” Laurie said.

  “It’s pretty suspicious that Rosie got in the Dumpster to change clothes,” Pat remarked.

  “She’s homeless,” Eddie said. “She could have changed clothes in our hotel room, but she didn’t know us then. There’s nothing wrong with changing clothes in a Dumpster if you’re homeless.”

  “Well, he’s made another point,” Laurie said. “Maybe we better go over and help mediate this quarrel.”

  “I’m old enough to know better than to stick my hand in a dogfight,” Neddie said.

  “They’re not fighting now anyway,” Pat said. “Sheba just locked him in a Dumpster.”

  Sheba then took a sizable padlock out of her purse and padlocked the Dumpster.

  “Why did she do that?” Eddie asked. “Now Otis can’t get out. I asked him to go see the Statue of Liberty with us. I don’t want to go without him—it might make him sad.”

  “That’s a nice thought, Eddie,” Harmony said.

  “I always have nice thoughts,” Eddie said. “The only times I don’t is when Eli steals my lunch.”

  “It’s going to be a pretty crowded cab ride, over to the ferry,” Laurie said.

  “No cab, we talked to cousin who owns school bus,” Omar said. “He can take us all, very modest fee.”

  “I better go talk to Sheba,” Eddie said. “She’ll listen to me. I have to explain to her that she has to let Otis out so he can go to the Statue of Liberty with us.”

  “I would say you’re just the man for the job, Eddie,” Laurie said.

  Harmony saw that Laurie was sad—it showed in her eyes. She had a big mouth and a nice smile but above the smile were two sad brown eyes.

  Eddie ran across the parking lot again, traveling at his usual fleet pace.

  “I never met anyone quite like Eddie,” Laurie said. “What did you do before you had him?”

  “I can’t remember very well,” Harmony said. “It seems like I’ve always had Eddie.”

  “You’re not supposed to give kids too much responsibility too young,” Neddie said. “It messes them up.”

  “Yeah, they might not get to enjoy their childhood to the full,” Pat said.

  “They don’t think I’m a good mother,” Harmony explained. “They think I give Eddie too much responsibility.”

  “I don’t think it’s a question of giving Eddie responsibility,” Laurie said. “He just seems to take it and run with it. Not many kids that age would realize that it hurts people to be left out.”

  She said it with a sad note in her voice. Harmony could imagine that being gay might have caused Laurie to be left out, particularly if she had discovered that she was gay in high school, when almost any behavior that was a little unusual could cause a person to be left out.

  “Eddie’s like the man of the house, and he’s only five,” Pat said. “Somehow that don’t seem right.”

  “Pat, it isn’t right—why do you have to pick on me in front of Laurie?” Harmony said. “If I could find some grown man to be head of our house don’t you think I’d let him? I just don’t happen to have a boyfriend right now. That’s the only reason it seems like Eddie’s the head of the house. But there isn’t a house, and there wouldn’t be anything to put in it if there was one.”

  “All her stuff fell into a canyon and we left it,” Neddie explained.

  “It fell into the Canyon de Chelly,” Harmony said. “That’s in Arizona.”

  “I know, I’ve been there,” Laurie said. “My uncle’s a park ranger. He worked there for a while.”

  Down by the Dumpster, Eddie could be seen remonstrating with Sheba. Once in a while Eddie put his ear to the Dumpster, indicating that Otis was being allowed to participate in the conversation too—at least with Eddie.

  Then Sheba unlocked the padlock and attempted to raise the lid of the D
umpster; she had been strong enough to push it over from the rear, but she wasn’t strong enough to raise it. Several times she gave it a push and it went up a little way, before clanging back down.

  “Hope Otis don’t stick his head up,” Laurie said. “He’d be Dumpstered for sure.”

  There was no sign of Otis, however.

  “I think we better go help now,” Laurie said. “I don’t know how good Eddie is at taking orders. He might try to climb in, and get Dumpstered himself.”

  She started across the parking lot, slowly.

  “I like her but she sure is sad,” Neddie said.

  “Well, she lost the same person I lost,” Harmony said.

  “Very beautiful girl, Abdul should marry her,” Salah said. “Girl with gentle manner—make a good wife for Abdul.”

  “I don’t want to marry—I want to go to Atlantic City, get rich,” Abdul said.

  “She’s not interested in men, Salah,” Pat pointed out.

  Harmony started walking too. She didn’t feel like listening to her sisters explain to Omar and Salah that Laurie was gay. Since leaving Las Vegas she had felt a growing need to stay close to everybody: to her sisters, to Eddie, to old friends and new friends. Of course, it was no longer possible to stay close in the physical sense to Gary and Jessie and Myrtle. But she could stay close to her sisters and to Eddie, and now there was also Laurie, not to mention Omar and Salah and Abdul—Sheba and maybe even Otis. The thing that was happening that might become a little bit of a problem was that she only seemed to feel like adding people; she didn’t want to subtract anyone in her immediate circle, not just at that time. The reason that could be a problem was that there were only so many people who could be fitted into a taxi or a motel room. Very likely there were only so many people who could be fitted into a life, too. For most of her years in Las Vegas she had depended on only a few people, not counting other showgirls, who sort of had a tendency to come and go, particularly after the casino scene improved in Reno and Tahoe.

  Now, though, she had the feeling that she didn’t want to let a single person go. She wanted to keep adding, for a while. Maybe Omar’s cousin with the school bus would rent it to her for a small fee, while she added people to her life. None of the people, nor all of them together, could be expected to fill the gap left by Pepper; but having a lot of them, surrounding her life with their lives, made her feel a little safer—if nothing else she could distract herself with their problems, their foibles, their little sorrows and little dramas. It was better than just thinking always of what had been lost, or of what might have been.